National SCRABBLE® Championship

It's Day 1 of the 2009 National SCRABBLE Championship which is taking place right here in Dayton, Ohio. Last year it was held in Orlando, Florida. Dayton is certainly no Orlando. Sorry about this week's entertainment options SCRABBLE players! Downtown is crawling with quirky people bordering on madness mensa-level geniuses carrying their own SCRABBLE boards and timers. They've memorized "vowel dump" words, OO-words and every Q word without a U after. My friend Robb from North Carolina is a competitive player and is staying at my place this week. Good luck to ya buddy!

Here are a couple of stickers whose call letters and frequency resemble SCRABBLE tiles.


KPSU (K Portland State University) is a student-run, Freeform station from Portland, Oregon. All music and other programming heard on the station is chosen by the DJs. They've been on the air at 1450 AM and campus-wide at 98.1 FM since 1994.

KSDS

88.3 KSDS is a commercial-free Jazz station from San Diego, California. They've been broadcasting from San Diego City College since 1951 and have carried a Jazz format since 1973.

WNKU

WNKU (W Northern Kentucky University) is an Adult Album Alternative in the Cincinnati, Ohio/northern Kentucky area. National Public Radio provides news as well as the World Cafe and Fresh Air programs. WNKU is licensed to Highland Heights, KY.

WUHU

WUHU is a Hot Adult Contemporary station from Bowling Green, Kentucky. When they switched calls from WBLG to WUHU in 2001, they stunted by playing three songs for an entire weekend that prominently featured "woo hoo" in them. They were "Walk of Life" by Dire Straits, "Song 2" by Blur and "Woo Hoo" by the Rock-A-Teens. WUHU is licensed to Smiths Grove, KY.

KZXY

KZXY is a Hot Adult Contemporary station licensed to Apple Valley, California.

KARZ

KARZ was an (Adult Contemporary? Hot AC? I'm not exactly sure...) station licensed to Burney, California. The sticker is from around 1990. It's now a Rock station "106X" KRRX.

KEXS AM & FM

 

KEXS AM & FM are Religious Teaching stations in Kansas City, Missouri. They switched from Southern Gospel to Catholic programming in 2004 after being bought by the Catholic Radio Network. KEXS AM is licensed to Excelsior Springs, Missouri and the FM to Ravenwood, M.

WWKB

Taking a trip to Indiana for a Buffalo Bisons baseball game tonight. They're playing the Indianapolis Indians at Victory Field. The Bisons are the AAA affiliate of the New York Mets and the Indians are the Pittsburgh Pirates AAA farm club. We plan on duckpin bowling before the game which I've never done before. Also want to hit Luna Music and buy a few obsolete aluminum discs. Should be a fun day if it doesn't rain.

GO BISONS!!

WWKB was a Sports Talk station in Buffalo, New York around 1996. They now carry a Liberal Talk format. WWKB was formerly WKBW which began broadcasting in 1926.

UPDATE:
Bisons won over the Indians 6-3. Woo hoo!!

Gateway Arch Opens

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri opened on this day back in 1967. The concrete and steel structure was designed twenty years earlier by two Finnish-Americans, one of whom died before he could see it completed. The Arch is both 630 feet tall and 630 feet feet wide at its base, which makes it the tallest monument in the United States. The core is hollow, allowing visitors to ride a tram to an observation deck where you can see 30 miles on a clear day.
In 1994 I saw the Arch in person albeit from the highway. I was on my way to KPNT's second-ever daylong PointFest where the only bands I remember seeing were Material Issue and the Violent Femmes. I think Lisa Loeb sang her one hit as well but it's all a blur at this point.

KDHX (K Double HeliX Corporation, the name of the non-profit owner) is a listener-supported community station licensed to St. Louis, MO.

Here's an older, Archless sticker. I just now noticed that the 1 in their frequency forms the back of the K in their call letters.

KVOK

KVOK is a Country music station licensed to Kodiak, Alaska. They've been broadcasting from Kodiak Island since 1974.

EDIT: KVOK went off the air in 2019 after losing their transmitter site which was leased by the United States Coast Guard.

Ratcatcher's Day / WRAT

In the Brothers Grimm tale "The Children of Hameln," the residents of that German city had a rat problem. A pied piper appeared claiming he could rid the town of their infestation for which the townspeople promised to pay him. The piper played his instrument and lured the rats to the Weser River where they all drowned. When he went to get paid the residents refused and the piper went away but would soon get his revenge. The pied piper returned while the townspeople were at church and began playing his pipe which attracted most of the children of the town. He and his hypnotic music lured them to a cave where they were never seen again. Depending on which version of the tale you read, the ratcatching events took place either on June 26th or July 22nd. It's doubtful that most modern day pest control professionals actually celebrate Ratcatcher's Day.

95.9 FM WRAT is a Rock station licensed to Point Pleasant, New Jersey.

WMBS

WMBS (W Martha Buhl Snyder, named after the original owner's daughter) is an Adult Standards station licensed to Uniontown, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. They've been owned by the same family since they went on the air in 1937.

Buzz Aldrin Has Lost His Mind

Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin is a West Point graduate, accomplished fighter pilot, Doctor of Science in Astronautics, lunar module pilot of the Apollo 11 spacecraft and the second person to walk on the moon. Oh, and he's also a rapper. Celebrate the 40th anniversary of man touching down on the lunar surface by trying to watch Buzz busting rhymes in this cringeworthy video.




KXLK went on the air in 1985 with an Adult Contemporary format. In the mid-90s they flipped to Smooth Jazz as "105.3 The Oasis " KWSJ. Next came a Country format, Y105" KWCY. Finally in 2002 they changed calls to KFBZ and played all 80s music and later evolved to a Hot Adult Contemporary format. "105.3 The Buzz" is licensed to Haysville, Kansas a suburb of Wichita.

KKDJ

KKDJ was a 1980s-era Album Oriented Rock station in Fresno, California. They switched to Alternative Rock from 1991 to 1994. A series of short-lived formats followed including Classic Rock, Spanish, Talk, Variety Hits/JACK FM and even another shot as an AOR station. March, 2009 saw the latest flip, this time to News/Talk with KMJ as their call letters which they simulcast with their sister-station KMJ 580 AM

WKY

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma's WKY was the first radio station to be licensed west of the Mississippi River and the 28th overall. They began broadcasting in 1922 as "5XT" before being assigned the WKY call letters. Besides Contemporary Christian, they've gone through many formats over the years including Top-40, Adult Contemporary, Easy Listening, News/Talk, Sports Talk, Oldies and Country. In January, 2009 they flipped to a Regional Mexican station known as "La Indomable."

Newsman Walter Kronkite began his broadcasting career at WKY in 1935. He was an announcer for University of Oklahoma football games and later worked at the news desk. "The Most Trusted Man in America" died yesterday at the age of 92.

Disneyland opens

On this date back in 1955 Disneyland first opened to invited guests and the media for "Dedication Day." The park would open to the general public the next day. Grand opening events were carried live on ABC television and hosted by Art Linkletter and Ronald Reagan. The press preview did not go well and was later referred to as "Black Sunday" by Disney executives. Counterfeit tickets were rampant among the invitation-only guests. Shoes sunk into new asphalt which was growing soft in temperatures that reached 101 degrees. Many of the park's water fountains didn't work due to a plumbers strike. Some thought this was done on purpose to force people to buy Pepsi, one of the park's sponsors. Food ran out and a gas leak forced large sections of the park to be closed for the afternoon.

WCOG (Wonderful City Of Greensboro) runs a Children's Music format and is licensed to Greensboro, North Carolina. It is one of about 50 Radio Disney affiliates nationwide, mostly on the AM dial. WCOG started as a Top-40 station in the 1960s and has gone through a handful of formats and call letters over the years:
Beautiful Music, Oldies and Adult Standards as WGLD
Talk as WWWB
News/Talk and Sports Talk as WTCK
In 1999 the WCOG call letters returned along with a Christian Talk format before the switch to Disney in 2000.

KNLT

95.7 KNLT was an Oldies station licensed to Walla Walla, Washington. They flipped to Variety Hits as "Bob FM" in 2005 and currently run an Adult Contemporary format as "Star FM" KKSR.

CIKT

CIKT "Q99 FM" is a Hot Adult Contemporary station from Grande Prairie, Alberta and began broadcasting in April 2007.  

Radio Monte Carlo

A few French radio stickers in honor of Bastille Day.

Radio Monte Carlo was founded by the Nazis during World War II but taken over, with some American help, by the French government and the Principality of Monaco in 1944.

BFM is a sister station to Radio Monte Carlo and are both owned by NextRadioTV.

WGMA

WGMA was a Country music station in Hollywood, Florida from 1967 to 1979. They were known for their "play-the-hits," Top-40 approach to the Country format. 1320 AM, now with the call letters WLQY, currently runs time brokered Haitian Creole programming and was involved in some serious fraud a few years ago.